Hillfort Glow

On Saturday evening I was part of an event that may not have happened for a thousand or more years. I was part of a mass experiment,  organised by The Heather and Hillforts Project of the Clwydian Range,  which used light beacons to signal from one Ironage Hillfort to the next across North East Wales and Cheshire. This was made more magical as it was close to the equinox and the moon was sureally beautiful as it was  the closest it has been to the earth for 20 years and appeared like a watery watermelon out of the horizon to the west.

Moel Arthur from Penyclodiau..see the rampart 'collar'

A small group of would be hillfort dwellers (us!) walked up from Llangwyfan pass to the cairn at the top of Penycloddiau Hillfort. Penycloddiau is huge and it's double and triple ramparts wash up the sides forming large heather waves of earth and stone. These would have been topped with high fences with gated entrances long ago. It is 26 hectares and has a small lake fed with a spring in the middle. There was space for a fair size village here a thousand years ago...it looks over the mountains of Snowdonia, the Berwyns, The Ormes, The Irish Sea, The Dee Estuary and over The Cheshire Plains. If anyone was coming to get them they would be spotted in plenty of time.

Penycloddiau (our) flare

Flares were let off at the  hillforts at Corwen (Caer Drewen), Moel Fenlli (by Moel Famau), Moel Arthur (next to our hillfort and we could see the gang standing on there), Moel y Gaer (Rhosesmor), Maiden castle (Cheshire), Beeston Castle, Helsby, Burton Point and Kelsborrow.

Meol y Gaer flare and melon moon

The idea was for all the other hillforts to signal with light beacons and torches to the 'flare' hillfort when we saw their flare. It was great craic and so beautiful and exciting to see the wild landscape alive with distant flasing lights all secretly sending their light code into the dark.

flashing like mad ejets

At the end each hillfort let off another flare in quick succession and  the whole landscape sky was hung with flashes drifting down to earth....beautiful, magical and sparking all sorts of stories of long ago people in my imagination.

Moel Arthur and Moel Fenlli flashing at us